The average brothel patron would not expect his night of revelry to end prematurely with three metres of red silk wrapped round his neck, snuffing out the last ounce of breath in his lungs.
Unfortunately, the man who was now lying dead on the bed was no average fellow, and someone had put a hefty price on his head.
Sitting close by with her legs propped up onto the table in an uncouth manner, a young girl dressed in the rich, colourful silks of a courtesan slowly peeled an orange, unperturbed by the corpse lying less than couple of feet away from her. She popped a slice into her mouth.
"Not bad, but the blood oranges back home are much sweeter."
The little canary with its flaming red feathers that was perched comfortably on her shoulder chirped something in response, sparking a retort from the girl. "Excuse me, I've worked hard tonight. I think I deserve a good break and something to fill my stomach don't you think?" she said. "I could eat a whole cow right now, not just a handful of lousy oranges."
Opening her mouth, she spat a couple of pips into the air. Some landed on the exposed rotund belly of the man who was no longer breathing. The girl glanced sideways, sighing.
"I don't understand why there are some people who are able to stuff their faces until their stomachs can balloon to this sort of a size, yet there are those who are just skin and bones. Life is so unfair, isn't it?"
She finished another two oranges and tossed their peels over her shoulder. Standing up, she looked down at the cheap, gaudy clothes she was wearing.
"How could anyone wear clothes like these every day?" she snorted in disgust. "You can barely walk without tripping over yourself, and it's all so ridiculously heavy."
She quickly ripped the fabric with one swift motion, removing some of the unnecessary baggage that was weighing her down. Then, she walked over to the bed and removed the red silk ribbon that had been responsible for claiming the man's last breath.
"I'll need to give this a good wash now." She scowled as she looked at the amount of oil that was oozing out from the man's pores, giving his face a shiny sheen.
Stuffing the silk ribbons up her sleeves, she hopped onto the window sill, looking out at the serene night scene down below. The street was deserted, with the only sounds coming from the raunchy activity that was still going on in the various brothel rooms.
"Come on, Ember," she said to her canary friend with a lazy yawn. "I think it's time to go to bed. Sun's almost up." With that, she leapt out from the window and vanished into the depths of the night.
#
The next morning, the capital city of the kingdom of Jin was thrown into a state of disarray. The Minister of the Royal Treasury had been murdered, and news spread like wildfire.
His body was found in the wee hours of the morning by the owner of the Peony Pavilion—the capital's most famous brothel—and the poor lady was so traumatised by her find that she fainted on the spot. When she awoke, sounds of her pitiful cries would be heard for miles. Her prolific business would now forever be tainted by this one calamity and would possibly never regain its heights of glory.
"That blasted Phoenix!" she screeched at the top of her lungs, and in an instant everyone in the city knew who was responsible for this grisly crime.
Of course it had to be the Phoenix. There was no one else in the five kingdoms who would have the guts to lay a finger on the Minister of the Royal Treasury. The man controlled the finances of the wealthiest of the five kingdoms and by extension, had even more power in his hands than the king of Jin himself.
Everyone knew who the Phoenix was, yet at the same time no one knew who he or she was.
There were rumours that the Phoenix was a one-eyed swordsman with tattoos covering every inch of his body and a mouth filled with golden teeth, the most frightening sight you would ever see before you died. There were others that spoke of a waif-like woman who walked as though she was floating, moving as swift as the wind, so fast that you would never catch a glimpse of anything more than a moving shadow. And then there were those who said that the Phoenix was in fact of royal bloodline, a lost prince that had fallen from his golden perch and was now seeking revenge against those who had done him wrong.
In essence, there was no one verified account of what the Phoenix actually looked like, because anyone who had the good fortune of meeting the assassin was now buried six feet under.
At the very same moment when the brothel owner screamed her name for the whole world to hear, the culprit was seated in a private room in The Fat Duck, one of the most famous and priciest restaurants in the city, spending her hard-earned gold on a feast meant for ten.
Scratching her right ear, she said, "I think someone's talking about me behind my back. My ear keeps tickling."
The red canary that was perched by the window sill rolled his beady eyes, ignoring her comment.
Today, she had exchanged the colourful silks that she had been wearing the night before for a simple set of men's clothes, her long hair pulled up in a bun and hidden beneath a cheap straw hat that was typically worn by merchants and businessmen. Picking up her chopsticks, she took a good, hard sniff at the spread of delicacies that lay in front of her, rubbing her hands together in glee.
"They say that the roast duck and braised abalone at this restaurant is the best across the five kingdoms, I wonder if it's true," she said, reaching to pick up a slice of duck.
"Succulent and rich, with a slight tinge of wine." She chewed slowly, savouring the taste of the duck. "Tasty, but a little underwhelming if you ask me."
The canary named Ember watched as his owner continued scarfing down the food on the table Each plate slowly began to empty itself into the bottomless pit that was the stomach of the Phoenix. How a girl like that was able to have such a voracious appetite worthy of ten men was beyond his comprehension, but by now he had learnt not to doubt the inexplicable prowess of his owner. She was no ordinary girl, no matter how ordinary she might look.
"Have you heard? The king has assigned the commissioner of the guards the task of finding the one responsible for the murder of the minister," a voice came echoing from the next room.
"I know," his counterpart replied. "But how is it even possible to catch the Phoenix? It's like searching for a needle in a haystack! He could be in the next room right now and we wouldn't even know. The commissioner has a knotty problem on his hands."
Hearing this, the eavesdropping girl let out a light laugh, noting that the walls of this restaurant were not the most soundproof.
"His target isn't the Phoenix of course. It's the one who hired the assassin in the first place. Who do you think it is? The prime minister? General Im?"
"My money is on the prime minister. Minister Lu was well known to be on bad terms with the prime minister. He's been trying to usurp the position for ages! Anyway it serves him right, he's bumped taxes so high that it's impossible to sustain a profitable business in Jin these days. His coffers are filled, but our pockets are almost empty!"
"I'm not sure about that. The prime minister would surely know that suspicion would be pinned on his head the minute anything happened to Minister Lu. He's not a stupid man. Minister Lu recently cut the army's expenditure by almost half, it could well be the general who did it because he was upset about that."
"The more blatant it is, the less likely people will suspect! It's the prime minister, I'll put my entire month's earnings on that."
The Phoenix continued eating her dinner, casually listening in on the animated conversation that was taking place next door. She chuckled to herself at the thought that those men would likely faint on the spot if they realised that the one responsible for the death of the minister was sitting so close by.
"They've got the two most likely suspects, but how often is the right answer the most likely one?" she quipped, clearing her palate with a mouthful of jasmine tea.
Turning to her feathered friend, she said, "Looks like Jin is going to be facing some degree of turmoil for now, but I expect he'll be able to handle it without much trouble. Everyone thinks the tigers are the ones fighting—who would have expected that the wily fox is sitting in the shadows waiting to reap the prize?" Wagging her finger, she continued with her preaching. "This is why a kingdom shouldn't be allowed to get too wealthy. The more gold you have, the more people will want to fight over it. If you can't even trust your own men to help guard your riches and you need to guard against them all the time instead, then where's the joy in that? I can help him get rid of one, but what about the rest?"
But it was none of her business. She accepted a job, she completed the job, and she collected her payment. That was all.
When she had finally cleaned up every morsel that was on those plates, she stood up from her seat and let out a loud burp. The canary shot her a look of disgust, as he always did when he saw her behaving in a manner that was utterly disgraceful for a lady.
"Where shall we go next, Ember?" she asked, looking out of the window eagerly. "I'm bored of Jin and all these pompous people in their silken robes. Shall we drop by the Dahai for visit? I hear the royal court of Dahai is organising its annual sparring championships. Could be fun."
Fun? You're just going there to create trouble, aren't you? Her feathered companion shook his head. It wouldn't be the first time.
Winking at the bird, she said, "You know me too well."
#
At present, there existed five kingdoms balanced precariously upon an uneasy peace, each one serving to counter the next, preventing any one kingdom from overpowering another. Each of the five kingdoms was named after an element which aptly characterised the nature of each kingdom from its topography to its way of life and the characteristics of its people.
Air, water, metal, wind and fire.
The largest of them was the kingdom of Gi, the most populous the kingdom of Dahai, the wealthiest the kingdom of Jin, the most cultured the kingdom of Feng and last but not least, the most militarised the kingdom of Hwa.
Unlike the other four, Dahai was unique because it was situated on an island surrounded entirely by sea, located some distance off the coast of its neighbours Jin and Gi. Dahai was only accessible via modes of water transportation departing from the ports of the other two kingdoms.
The Phoenix boarded a small merchant ship from the main port of Jin, paying her way using a tiny fraction of the gold she had received in exchange for the life of one of the kingdom's most illustrious ministers.
"This way please!" the enthusiastic ship owner bellowed as he directed her towards the inner cabins of the ship. "I've arranged for you to have one of the best rooms on board, nothing but the best." A lot of it had to do with the string of gold coins that now sat comfortably at the bottom of his pocket.
"Thank you," she replied pleasantly, glancing around at the room that he had led her to. It was far from luxurious, but given how old and rickety the rest of the ship was, this room did seem relatively spacious and well-furnished compared with some of the others they had passed by along the way.
When the ship owner shut the door behind her and left the room, she immediately collapsed onto the bed and began bouncing up and down like an excited child. "Ember, what do you think? This is going to be our home for the next few days," she said.
The bird looked decidedly unimpressed, perching himself upon one of the beams above. His owner wasn't really waiting for an answer from him. She was simply asking a rhetorical question that she would no doubt forget within the next second.
Sure enough, she quickly leapt out of the bed and poked her head out of the porthole window, letting the sea breeze blow gently across her face. "Cast away!" she shouted, waving her hand excitedly as she watched the deck hands untie the ropes that were keeping the ship docked at the harbour.
Quit pretending as if you're the captain of the ship, the canary thought as he shut his eyes to take a nap. No doubt his owner would be running about the entire ship trying to find something to keep herself busy with for the rest of the afternoon, and he wanted to have no part in it whatsoever.
Abandoning her compatriot to his afternoon nap, the girl did exactly as he had expected, leaving the room to explore the other areas of the ship. She spent an hour or so turning the place inside out, until she decided that there was nothing else of interest for her to bother with and began to head back to her room to join in the afternoon snooze. However, when she passed by the ship's galley, she saw that a small crowd had gathered inside wearing worried expressions on their faces.
"What do you think caused him to become like this?" one of the sailors asked the man next to him.
"You reckon he ate something wrong? Was it the octopus that we had for lunch earlier?"
Another sailor shook his head and said, "It can't have been the octopus because I had it too! Maybe he's allergic to something? Or could he have been poisoned?"
"Who would poison him!"
Standing on tiptoes so that she could see between their heads, the Phoenix observed with interest that the subject of their discussion was a young sailor lying in a corner in a semi-conscious state. The boy had broken out in a mass of blisters and pustules on his face and arms, bleeding and oozing, which proved to be a gruesome sight. It was also the reason why no one was stepping forward to offer him a hand, just in case he was contagious. The chatter went on as the bystanders continued speculating about the man's condition, not even noticing that they had been joined by a "young man" who was curiously observing the sailor's disfigured face.
"He definitely ate something wrong, but it certainly wasn't the octopus," she mused to herself as she walked back to her room, leaving the crowd and the poor sailor behind. "It looked like something caused by poison ivy or nettles, but don't you only get the blisters when you touch the plant? Could you get the same reaction from eating them?" Why would a sailor even have been putting poison ivy or nettles in his mouth in the first place?
"You're absolutely right. It does look like the symptoms of poison ivy or nettles, but those typically cause localised reactions. The fellow was affected by a mixture of the essences from hyacinth, hogweed and a touch of poison ivy, which when put together can cause quite the severe allergic reaction across the entire body. Not fatal, but definitely painful and exceedingly uncomfortable. In any case, it's his own fault for stealing something that he shouldn't have. Being greedy never pays, you know," a strange voice answered.
The Phoenix instinctively shot out the red ribbons of silk hidden within her long sleeves, threatening to knock the intruder down from his resting position atop one of the ceiling beams.
The man chuckled and swiftly adjusted his position, leaping over to the next beam. He squatted there, peering down curiously at the girl.
"Who are you?" she demanded angrily. It wasn't every day that someone dared barge into her room uninvited, and was able to evade her attacks so easily. Looking up, she studied the man and his smiling face suspiciously. Dressed from head to toe in pure white, the intruder wore an intricate white mask that covered the left half his face. Even so, there was a certain debonair charm and attractiveness to him that could not be hidden.
"And who are you?" he asked in return, a sly smile playing across his lips.
"I don't think you want to find out, because if you do, then you'll be spending the rest of eternity at the bottom of the sea," she replied coolly.
The man threw his head back and laughed. "I don't doubt that. I know you're the Phoenix, but that's not my question." Hopping off the beam, he landed right in front of her, his dark, almost obsidian eyes boring right through to the bottom of her soul, as if trying to search for an answer. "My question is, who are you?"
"You can call me Yuehwa," she replied after a momentary pause. "Now that I've answered your question, are you going to answer mine?"
"I would have thought you would already have the answer to that question."
Yuehwa shook her head and looked at the man with a tinge of disappointment, saying, "Just as you know that I'm the Phoenix, likewise I know that you're the infamous White Scorpion, but that's not my question either. My question is, who are you?"
The man laughed once again, before reaching out his hand to her. "The name is Shoya, and it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."